Beautiful
by Stelena-Beautiful
Summary: A chance encounter with a highly talkative stranger on a rainy, Parisian street changes life for Steffy Forrester in ways she never could have foreseen. It sounds romantic, right? Not so fast. The person she meets isn't her soulmate but rather someone who becomes a true blue friend and leads her towards her destiny! Will eventually contain a Steffy/Jasper Jacks romance.


**Beautiful**

_**Main Pairing:**_ Steffy Forrester and Jasper "Jax" Jacks

**Chapter 1: Steffy Quits**

_**Late January 2014**_

_**Paris, France**_

"_Steffy, come back here!"_ Taylor Forrester called out to her daughter as Steffy strode briskly down the hall. Her long, lean legs moved with purpose and power as she stomped towards the office at the end of the long hallway.

"Stop. Please!" Taylor pleaded. Steffy ignored her mother as she finally pushed back the door to the office and stepped inside; giving the four walls a cursory look. The office was small, dank and cramped – the tiniest room in the building, actually. It wasn't as bad as say, being stuck in the basement, of course, but the fact that her father was willing to stick her in here at all said volumes about how little regard he had for her feelings and contributions to not only the company, but the family too.

_Well, I'm done with him;_ she thought and reached for the big white plastic carton that she received her mail in every morning. She immediately began filling it up with whatever she could grasp with her two small, shaking hands. She dumped her design book in with the lot. The same design book that was chockfull of sketches she had slaved over for months. Designs that she had stupidly thought her father might appreciate - or _gasp!_, even like.

_I'm done with him. I'm done with him,_ she chanted in her head as she slammed her purse on top of the overflowing box of her belongings. She turned to face the doorway. Taylor was standing there, leaning against the frame, panting a bit after the chase, but mostly just looking terribly upset.

"Steffy-"

"Don't. I'm done, Mom. I'm done with Dad. Done trying to please him when it will just never, ever be enough."

"Steffy, don't be that way. Today was unfortunate, yes, but he didn't say that your designs were awful. He just said that –"

"They were 'outrageous to the point of being almost offensive'. And that was the _nicest _thing he said. I worked hard on these. I wanted to impress him so much… He critiqued the hell out of my work in front of a room full of his peons and then said I should go back to the drawing board. That maybe I'm just 'rusty'. The worst part? He mentioned_ Hope_. He praised her, said what monstrous revenue her 'classically stylish' heap of clothes are bringing in. He said I might want to take a page from _her_ design book, Mom!"

"He wasn't trying to make you feel bad, Steffy."

"No, he was just being himself. He's a jerk. And I'm done trying to placate him, done trying to win his love when he doesn't appreciate me at all. "

"Steffy, your father loves you. You know he does. Don't doubt that because of one bad review."

"It's not just that, Mom. The way he came down on my presentation today was really just the tip of the iceberg on the shit he's pulled over the years." Steffy shifted the box onto her slim hip. She looked at her mother tersely. "I meant it when I told him I quit Forrester. I don't want to work at a company where I'm not respected. And as for Dad, I meant it too when I called him an 'asshole' in front of his board members. I am sorry but I just can't forgive him for humiliating me that way, at least not right now. I can only take so much crap before I cry 'uncle'. I can't and won't forgive him for everything he does, the way you always have."

Taylor pushed a strand of her long, dark hair behind her ear and pursed her lips. She sighed softly, splaying her hands in front of her full breasts. "Steffy, you're angry right now. You're incredibly volatile. You _do_ need to take a few days off to just think things over. You very well can end up changing your mind though. Don't burn your bridges here completely."

"I didn't burn them, Mom. Dad did." Steffy then held the box out in front of her and moved to the door. "I'll see you later."

Taylor sighed again but nodded and stepped aside. "I love you, honey."

"I love you too, Mom," Steffy said quietly. "But I think we all deserve better than what Dad gives us. Especially you."

Steffy then walked down the hall, holding her head as high as she could, as she walked out of Forrester International for what she vowed was the very last time.

XoXoXo

Rain was coming down in thick sheets as Steffy emerged from the International building a minute later. She wriggled deeper into her thick coat and ducked immediately back under the eaves as huge, freezing raindrops splattered her face. _Of all the days not to have her car with her,_ she mused darkly. It was hard to make a dramatic exit when she was almost immediately hurled back into the building by the torrential weather.

She scanned the street. Taxis zipped by but they all were full to capacity and the drivers didn't so much as give her a second look. She sighed and slumped against the wall.

Great, just great. She was apparently marooned here until the rain ceased to fall. Whenever that would be.

She had been standing there for at least three minutes when she heard footsteps approaching. She looked up in time to see a tall, slender woman with short, frizzed up brown hair duck under the eaves beside her. Steffy glared at the woman, not wanting company, but the woman seemed not to notice. She instead huddled deeper into her mink coat and chattered her teeth noisily.

"Burrrr," the woman said in a decidedly American accent. "I forgot how much the term 'raining cats and dogs' truly applies in this place. I haven't been to Paris in like five years. I only came back because a friend of mine is sort of hanging out here these days. And you know, I had nowhere else to go." She looked at Steffy. "Sorry. I prattle. It's sort of my thing."

Steffy rolled her eyes. "So I noticed."

The woman shifted from foot to foot. "I wish this rain would let up. It's making hell out of my hair."

Steffy sighed. This woman was awfully chatty. And random. She was a bit of a contradiction too. She wore a mink coat and had a huge diamond ring glistened on her finger but underneath the mink, she had on cheap Levi's and a yellow turtleneck you could find at any old Tee-Shirt Barn back in the states. Her tennis shoes were ratty and ugly too.

The woman sighed and tucked her slender arms inside her jacket. She turned on her heel and looked up at the sign on the door. "Forrester International. Well I'll be. I married my dear Simon in a Forrester original gown. It cost an arm and a leg and some other body parts too but it was so beautiful. I felt like a princess that day instead of … well, me."

Steffy looked at the woman again, a little of her annoyance zipping away. "Forrester has some gifted designers, for sure." She wasn't about to admit she had been one of them once upon a time and that the comeback she had tried to stage today had been a _huge _bust.

"Oh, definitely," the woman said. She peered at Steffy. "You know you look familiar to me, come to think of it."

"I just must have one of those faces."

"No, no I definitely know you from somewhere. I never forget a face. Names, places, yes! But not faces! You're uh –" She tapped her small nose, seemingly in deep thought. She then looked at the building and back at Steffy. "Ohmigod! Of course. You're a Forrester. The one who appears in a lot of those tabloids."

Steffy frowned and shook her head. The woman quickly held up a hand. "Don't be upset. Better to be infamous than unrecognizable!" Steffy's eyes widened. "I mean… Well, that doesn't sound so good. I am so clumsy with my words – and feet – sometimes. I'm – I'm Venus. Mostly everyone calls me 'V' though. It's nice to meet you... Steffy? That's your name right?"

"Yeah …" Steffy felt like she was dreaming this whole encounter. It was so surreal. This woman was the epitome of flighty too.

"Well, Steffy, it's colder than the North Pole in Paris right now and you're standing out here looking lost while your family's all warm and cozy inside so I am guessing, you're not having a good day."

"No, I'm not," Steffy admitted, almost against her own will.

"My day has been kind of hellish too," V said. She leaned back against the wall and watched the rain fall in silence for a moment. "You know I noticed a little café two doors down. If we make a run for it, we can probably grab a table before we die of pneumonia standing out here."

Steffy arched an eyebrow. "What?"

"There are no taxis to be found. We might as well have some coffee and trade war stories, right?"

"Are you by any chance trying to hit –"

"Am I hitting on you?" V blushed. "Uh, no. Not at all. I mean, sure you're beautiful. Okay, I meant that in a strictly hetero way." She blushed still more. "Look, I'm not gay. I'm straight as an arrow actually but I am kind of lonely for company at this moment as my good buddy Jax is in an all-day meeting and I'm having a really crummy day … I just need someone to talk to. As pathetic and creepy as that sounds. And maybe you do too…?"

Steffy sighed. "I don't usually –"

"God. Me either, actually. But it's like karma found the one person who might be having a worse day than me and planted me in their pathway. Maybe we were supposed to meet."

Steffy shrugged. "Hmm …" She looked at V with a thin smile tracing her lips. "Okay, I guess I could stand to have some coffee. Caffeine is kind of a picker-upper, right? Besides, I've actually been in that café you pointed out more than a few times. Their French roast and vanilla bean is probably the best that I've ever tasted."

V smiled. "So we're making a run for it?"

Steffy nodded slowly. "Yeah, yeah, I guess so."

_**A/N: Does anyone remember Jax's old friend, Venus? She hasn't been on GH since 1999 but I loved her and she asked me kindly to include her in a story and I said "yes" haha Okay, that's weird but I hope you like "seeing" V after all this time. Lisa Cerasoli was brilliant in the part. Google her scenes sometime. You won't regret it!**_ :)


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